


forgot just why i left you

by grimmyneutron



Series: close ain't close enough [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Accidental Plot, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drug Abuse, F/M, Recreational Drug Use, i don't even know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 15:16:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8018992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimmyneutron/pseuds/grimmyneutron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why aren’t you naked?” She asks, quite serious.</p><p>“You’ll hate me in the morning,” He says softly, but he looks like he wants to eat her.</p><p>She wants his hands on her. “So nothing will change, then.”</p><p>-</p><p>Or, Clarke is good at running and Bellamy is better at finding her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	forgot just why i left you

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I listen to "Closer" by the Chainsmokers 300 times in a row. There might be a plot if you squint really hard. I don't know. 100% unedited and unashamed. Or a lot ashamed. It's very late.

Clarke meets Lexa when she first checks into her suite at the Plaza. She’d spent the entire afternoon shopping on 5th, dropping thousands of dollars in mere hours, and in a new dress and heels, she finally feels like she belongs.

There’s a woman sitting at the hotel bar, all legs and tanned skin, with long brown hair cascading over her shoulders. Her eyes are dark, accented by thick, smoky eye shadow, and the corner of her mouth turns up in a close-lipped smile when Clarke sits down a seat away from her.

Clarke orders a 7 and 7 because she can’t bring herself to order a drink she actually likes. She downs the thing in three gulps, the burn of the whiskey in her throat enough to make her gag.

“Here, try this,” The woman with smoky eyes says, sliding into the empty seat between them. She pushes her drink in front of Clarke, a high-ball glass filled with pinkish-yellow liquid and garnished with a cherry.

“I’m Lexa,” The woman says as Clarke takes a sip of the sickly sweet drink.

“Clarke.”

They sip on pinkish-yellow drinks for the rest of the evening, conversing a little, Clarke dodging any and all personal questions that go anything beyond surface level. After their fourth or fifth drink, Clarke is a little drunk and Lexa’s cell phone rings.

“We’re coming,” is all she says into the phone. Then, “Yes, _we_ ,” She looks at Clarke and smiles. “I found a friend.”

Clarke follows Lexa to a club nearby and gets even drunker. She lets Lexa press close to her at the bar and on the dance floor and makes nice with a few of the people Lexa introduces her to.

At some point, one of the girls in the group grabs Lexa’s arm and begins pulling her towards the bathroom. Lexa snags Clarke’s arm and pulls her along as well.

When they get into the bathroom, the girl giggles and pulls a bag of white powder out of her purse. She and Lexa shriek with laughter and take a few hits off Lexa’s room key.

“Clarke,” Lexa says, holding out the key, a small mound of powder already set on it.

Clarke’s nose burns for a few minutes, but for the rest of the night, she’s flying.

Within a week of meeting Lexa, she meets Anya, who is constantly smoking and rarely smiles, Roan, quiet, never without a joint tucked behind his ear, and Nyko, sweet, from upstate, very keen on prescription drugs. She likes these people, these rich, young fools like her with nothing but time to waste and money to spend. They all live to die, and Clarke likes that. 

The next day, Clarke, high on her recently accessible trust fund and possibilities and the city, buys out the hotel suite at the Plaza, and her new friends show her how to get high on other things. Other things that make colors brighter and music louder and sex better and she forgets it all. Wells and her dad and anything that isn’t the city or dancing or whatever pills Nyko gives her on a particular night.

It’s easy to be their friend, to slide into their little clique and still keep her distance; hardly any of them ask questions about her past or why she’s here. They’re far too self-absorbed to even worry about her, and Clarke doesn’t hate being mysterious. She can be distant, quiet, even outright rude if she wants, and it doesn’t matter as long as she looks good and goes out.

So she stays up until daylight, gets high and drunk and whatever else she can because sleeping brings nightmares and being sober brings memories. The haze is the only way she can forget. About her family. About Wells. About the accident. About freckles and Old Spice.

Clarke loves New York.

-

It’s 2am and she inhales deeply, wipes her nose and marches out of the bathroom. Clarke stumbles back to where her friends are sitting and lets herself fall back against the suede couch, which is just like, so _soft_. She’s never noticed till just now.

Roan says something and Anya laughs, a loud, hollow noise because of how high she is. How high they all are. Clarke keeps her eyes shut, feels her pulse jumping to the bass, feels Lexa’s hand slipping up her thigh under the slinky fabric of her dress and the world spinning around her. Nyko always has good stuff, but she's never felt like _this_.

She sits up, slaps Lexa’s hand away and jumps to her feet.

"Where’re you going?” Nyko’s voice is slurred and Clarke tries to focus on one of his many faces floating in front of her.

Clarke shakes her head. She just wants to dance. The bass is pulsing through her body, thump after thump, like a siren's song, and she just wants to _move_. Lexa follows her to the dance floor and they spin and spin and spin and Clarke throws her head back and for once is not afraid of the dizziness that threatens to knock her down.

Lexa laughs, still spinning, presses close even though Clarke’s been refusing her all night. At this point, she’s too high to stop Lexa if she really tried something, but when Lexa sucks a bruise on her neck, Clarke tries to push away.

She stumbles backwards into a warm, solid body. A pair of arms steady her, and over the stench of sweat and alcohol and moving bodies, she smells it. Old Spice, spearmint and laundry detergent. It can’t be him. She keeps her eyes closed and says his name, hoping the hallucination will fade and the stranger will take offense at the mistake and leave. He doesn’t.

The arms spin her around and as she crumples against him, his knee slides between her thighs. Her tongue is too big in her mouth and her mind is so dizzy that opening her eyes seems a near impossible feat. When she does open them, Bellamy is staring down at her, his lips pressed in a firm line and worry between his brows. She almost throws up.

"What've you done to yourself, Princess?"

It isn’t fair, how quickly he's found her. In a club. Catching her as she’s about to fall. Looking down at her like she’s a child. She tries to focus on something, anything, like his eyes or his stupid, messy hair or the stubble lining his jaw. But she’s too high and right now all she wants is to jump his bones.

“Let’s go,” She says, and lets him lead her off the dance floor.

"Hey man, what do you think you're doing?" Nyko steps in front of them, at least a head shorter than Bellamy and a lot less sober. 

Clarke smiles, or tries to, managing to focus on one Nyko for a moment. "S'just taking me to the hotel, Nyko."

Without waiting for rebuttal, Bellamy puts a strong hand on Nyko's chest and shoves him out of the way. He pushes their way out of the club into the chilly December air. The lights that decorate the buildings and streets remind Clarke that it’s almost Christmas. She'd nearly forgotten.

" _Nyko_?" Bellamy scoffs.

"Shut up," She says. The words feel thick and heavy on her tongue.

The cold helps her sober up enough to unsteadily wave down a cab. Bellamy doesn't speak, just lets her melt into him in the backseat and press her nose against his neck, breathing in Old Spice and spearmint and things she suddenly does not want to forget anymore.

In her hotel room, he sits down on her bed and watches her strip off her stilettos and her clothes until she’s standing exposed before him.

“Why aren’t you naked?” She asks, quite serious.

“You’ll hate me in the morning,” He says softly, but he looks like he wants to eat her.

She wants his hands on her. “So nothing will change, then.”

He lets her kiss him, shove him into the too-big bed and suck a bruise on his collarbone. "Princess..." He warns when she reaches for the buckle of his belt, but he doesn't stop her when she unzips his fly, and he raises his hips so she can slide off his pants.

She likes hearing 'princess' again. No one has called her princess in three months. She smiles when she sees he’s already hard. She knows he would let her do whatever she wanted; she knows how he feels about her, after all. She tugs at his dick once, twice, and he groans.

Then, “Wait, Clarke—”

She moves to put her mouth on him, and, “Stop.”

When she falls back onto her knees, Bellamy is looking at her like he doesn’t know who she is or how they got here. “You’re high,” He says.

“And drunk,” She affirms.

He rubs his hands over his face and sighs, and it is sad, defeated. Clarke hates the sound immediately.

"Let me," She tries again, reaching for his cock.

He grabs her wrists and tugs her forward and their lips meet and Clarke tastes coffee and cigarettes and everything she missed so much.

He cups her chin and gently pushes her away. “I didn’t come all the way to New York just to fuck you.”

“Didn’t you?” She says, leaning forward again.

This time he reels back, hurt evident in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” She says earnestly as he shoves her off him and gets to his feet. When he reaches for his pants, she grabs his arm and begs, “Stay.”

He does as she says, strips off his shirt and socks and falls into bed. This time, he is pliant underneath her as she straddles him. His mouth opens under hers, and she drinks him in, suddenly dying of a thirst she didn’t know she had.

She wants him to touch her, so she grinds down against his erection. She smiles when he moans into her mouth, his hands sliding up her sides.

“Okay?” She asks as she pulls off his boxers.

He nods shakily, his hands fisting in her hair as he leans up to kiss her again. He rolls them over so she’s on her back, presses into her and makes her come so hard her vision goes white.

“I love you,” He says later, when they’re both boneless and satiated, and she pretends not to hear him.

-

When she wakes up, it is already after noon and someone is turning the key in her door.

“Clarke, you better have a damn good explanation for last night—" Lexa stops short when she rounds the corner into the bedroom. " _Oh_."

Clarke sits up and blinks sleep out of her eyes while Bellamy pulls a pillow over his head and curls around her back. "Hey," Is all Clarke can manage, her voice hoarse and raspy from the night before. She purposefully doesn’t meet Lexa’s gaze because she really doesn’t want to deal with the betrayal and jealousy she’ll see there.

"Lex, is she in here because I am not waiting for her, so help me—” Anya is saying as she rushes into the bedroom. She shuts up when she bumps into Lexa’s back and her mouth drops open.

They both start asking questions at once, rapid fire, and Bellamy moans into the pillow. "Make them leave."

"Excuse me?" Lexa snaps, the pinnacle of offended. She rounds on Clarke, "Who the fuck is he, Clarke? What’s his fucking problem?”

Bellamy sits up suddenly and snarls, "Get. Out."

The girls squeak and hurry from the room, calling him all sorts of names as they leave. "You better fucking call us, Clarke!” Anya yells as she slams the door behind them.

Clarke turns to Bellamy and scowls. "You didn't have to be so rude."

He shrugged. “You've got terrible choice in company, Princess.”

“You’re evidence to that, aren’t you?” She doesn’t mean for it to come out malicious, but it does and Bellamy drops his gaze to the sheets.

She studies him for a moment, taking it all in. She can see why the girls didn’t think twice when he snapped at them. He does look kind of terrifying. His eyes are bloodshot, dark crescents framing them. His face seems thinner somehow, his freckles faded with his tan, most likely from the exhaustion that has finally taken its toll. But he’s still breathtakingly handsome. The kind of handsome that belongs on magazine covers and runways, all chiseled features paired with soft brown eyes and a dark mop of hair. God, she missed him.

She almost says so, but instead she asks, "How'd you find me?"

He acts offended. "You’ve used that credit card enough in the past few months. Plus, I had a feeling you were here. You always hated New York. But Wells loved it."

Clarke sucks in a sharp breath. It’s the first time she'd heard his name aloud in three months and it hurts more than she thought it would. "That's not why I came here."

"That’s a load of bull—"

"It's not your business!" She feels tears sting her eyes and is immediately embarrassed. It only makes sense that the minute Bellamy shows up she'd start crying. "Stop acting like you’re in my head. You don’t know shit, you know that? You didn't lose your best friend!”

He opens his mouth, but she continues, her voice rising in volume. "I told you I didn't want to see you. I want to be left alone. I'm having fun, I've moved on, I’m _living_. Wells isn’t—he is  _not_  the reason I came here." Her face burns as she stutters over his name.

Bellamy hops out of bed, still naked but no less intimidating. "Then what is the reason, Clarke? You fucking  _hate_  New York. You could barely stand D.C. This isn't moving on; this is running away. You ran away from me."

"Because I didn't need you!"

"Did you ever think that maybe  _I_  needed  _you_?!" His voice cracks over the last word.

Clarke shudders at the sudden silence.

Bellamy closes his eyes and sighs. He flounders for a moment, his bottom lip quivering. And then, "I know nothing can compare to losing Wells. And I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry he’s gone, but Octavia — I didn’t know if she’d ever come back to me, and the doctors didn’t either. And we were _there_ , Clarke, fuck. In the accident, at the hospital, and then you just — you just _left_ , and I —"

He breaks off again, wiping his hand across his face. His eyes open and he takes a shuddering breath. "I _needed you._ ”

“ _Bellamy_ ,” She rushes to untangle herself from the sheets and stumbles to her feet, desperate to make the look on his face disappear. It was the same look he had when the doctors told him they didn’t know if Octavia would wake up. God, she should never have left.

She closes her eyes, remembers the last moment she’d seen him before she ran.

_She sees Bellamy through the window, curled up in the uncomfortable chair next to the hospital bed, clutching Octavia’s hand between both of his. She looks very small in the bed, surrounded by too many tubes and wires._

_Clarke knocks, limps into the room on her sore ankle. When he looks up at her, she nearly breaks down. His face is sprinkled with cuts from the windshield’s shattering, a busted lip, and a fractured wrist that’s already been splinted. That he’s been hurt at all makes Clarke’s stomach lurch._

_“How is he?” Bellamy asks, voice hoarse._

_“Still in surgery,” She says. “My mom says,” She chokes back a sob that sneaks up on her, and then, “She says… his chances are—they’re slim, and that we need to be_ realistic. _”_

_Bellamy’s whole body seems to sag as he slumps back in his chair. “I’m so sorry, Clarke.”_

_She doesn’t let him say anything else, just climbs into his lap and soaks his shirt with her tears. He cards his free hand – he only gives up one, the other seems permanently glued to Octavia’s – through her hair, gently scratching her scalp, and they wait._

_Wells does not make it through the surgery. Internal bleeding from his collapsed lung and punctured kidneys was too severe, Abby tells Clarke, as if knowing this will bring her peace of mind. It doesn’t._

_Bellamy leaves the hospital for the first time in five days, for the funeral. He comes, stands next to Clarke in a wrinkled suit and holds her hand; he even sheds a tear that she knows is genuine. Clarke is too numb to cry. After, she lets him drive her car back to the hospital, back to Octavia._

_He tells her she doesn’t have to come in with him. She is at once grateful and guilt-ridden. She should go inside. She doesn’t._

_“I could,” He swallows, hesitant, nervous, “I could come over tonight. If you don’t want to be alone.”_

_She almost says yes. Instead, she shakes her head, smiles tightly. “Octavia needs you more than I do.”_

_The briefest look of devastation flashes across his features, but then he stones his expression and nods._

_She drives away while he’s still standing on the curb. As she turns out of the parking lot, she glances in her rearview mirror and sees him there, watching her car. Her house is south, near Dupont Circle. She turns right and heads north, towards the interstate, and does not look in the rearview mirror again._

Clarke knows now that she should have told him to come over that night and that she should have gone into the hospital with him. She knows when she said Octavia needed him more than she did that she did not even consider he needed her.

When she reaches for him now, three months too late, he shakes his head, puts his hands up to stop her. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

She watches in disbelief as he tugs on his pants. “You’re leaving?”

“Figured you’d pick up on that seeing as you’re so familiar with the concept.”

His voice is cold, malicious in a way that is so not-Bellamy, and she hates this. He won’t look at her as he throws on his shirt, grabs his coat and shoes.

He pauses at the door, turns and finally meets her gaze. “Goodbye, Clarke.”

The door slams, and Clarke cries for the first time in three months.

-

Lexa and Anya are fairly forgiving, as she’d expected them to be. She makes up some lie about meeting Bellamy at the club the night before, how he was kind of a prick but the sex was amazing so she hopes they understand. Anya immediately wants details, and Lexa sulks for a bit until Clarke suggests they go out again tonight.

They meet Nyko at the hotel bar, and the friend he’s brought with him introduces himself as Finn. He’s cute enough, a bit charming and somewhat funny and immediately smitten with Clarke. He buys her drinks at the bar, and then at the club they go to soon after.

The drunker she gets, however, the more Clarke thinks about Bellamy. She must look pitiful because Finn leans in close and asks her what’s wrong.

“Nothing,” She says coolly. “Just a rough day, is all.”

“I have something for that,” Finn says with a smug grin. He pulls a little plastic baggie out of his pocket. Inside are two little white pills.

“What are they?” She asks.

“Oxys. Good ones too.”

“How good?”

“Take one and you’ll forget your own name, honestly.”

Clarke wants to forget everything, so why the fuck not. She holds out her hand, and Finn dumps one of the pills in her palm. She waits for him to do the same, and they take them together.

Clarke doesn’t really feel anything for a while, just drunk and a little hazy. Soon though, she begins to feel dizzy, and not the good kind.

“Clarke?”

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” She says breathily.

“Probably,” Finn says, and ushers her to the bathroom.

She vomits into the toilet easily, no gagging or anything. She feels immediately better after puking once more. Like, too much better. High. She wipes her mouth, and walks out of the bathroom to meet Finn, who smiles knowingly.

“Better?”

“Yes,” She says.

“Wanna dance?”

They meet Anya on the dance floor, and the rest of the night passes in a blur. Just as Clarke begins to come down, her friends say they want to leave. Clarke feels hot and too big for her own skin; she thinks air might be a good idea.

Outside the club, the cold winter air doesn’t help like Clarke hoped it would. She ignores her friends’ protests and stumbles around the side of the building, into the alley, and thinks about getting sick again. She leans against the building, and the cool damp brick feels good against her forehead.

“Shit, Clarke,” She hears a familiar voice say behind her.

“I thought you left,” She croaks.

“I’m glad I didn’t,” He says, pulling her into his arms. “What did you take?”

“Oxys?” She says because she thinks that sounds right.

“Jesus.”

He takes her back to the hotel and she has déjà vu from the night before. Except this time, her body is betraying her, and she can’t seem to make her limbs work like she wants them to.

Bellamy puts her to bed, tucking her in and placing water on the bedside table. He sits on the edge of the bed and pushes her hair back from her face.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” He asks quietly.

Clarke is too dizzy to consider if he wants an answer.

“Do you want me to stay?” He asks after a moment.

“Yes,” She says; she hadn’t even considered his leaving an option. “No sex though. Too dizzy.”

“Ah, my plan to take advantage of you is foiled.”

The amusement in his tone is so familiar and welcome it makes tears spring to her eyes. She pulls him so he lies down next to her on the bed. He doesn’t put up a fight, which even in her state of dizziness she takes as a good sign, so she presses her nose into his shoulder, breathing in his scent.

She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when she does, she dreams.

 _“Oh, yeah_ right, _you guys were basically trying to eat each other—“_

_“We were not!” Wells shouts, scandalized. He takes a hand off the wheel to reach around his seat and swat at Octavia, who presses against the window and squeals._

_“You_ were _kind of groping each other at the bar,” Clarke says, laughing as Octavia swats back at Wells._

_“Bellamy, tell them that isn’t true,” Wells says._

_Bellamy pointedly looks out the front passenger window and scratches the back of his head._

_“Come on, Blake, back me up!” Wells groans and slams his head down on the wheel as they pull up to a red light._

_Bellamy snorts. “I can’t. You guys might as well have banged on the bar.”_

_Clarke and Octavia burst into laughter, and the light turns green._

_Wells huffs and steps on the gas, and just when they’re crossing the middle of the intersection, Octavia screams. “Wells!”_

_It’s too late to do anything though. The pick-up truck does not stop at the red light and flies full speed into the left side of the car. Clarke tucks her head into her arms and slams against the right rear window. She expects to pass out, but she stays awake._

_The cars skid for what feels like an eternity, glass shards raining down on them all like snow, and then it stills._

_Clarke opens her eyes. “Bellamy?” She immediately croaks, but she can’t hear anything over the ringing in her ears._

_She turns and sees Wells, slumped in his seat, blood streaming down his face from somewhere on his scalp. Oh god, oh god oh god oh god oh—_

She starts awake, and Bellamy is there when she reaches for him, rubs her back until her heart stops hammering in her chest. When she finally calms down, she realizes she feels like walking into traffic, she is so hungover. Bellamy brings her water and some ibuprofen and massages her temples, and she is immensely grateful he’s there.

“What now?” He asks after they’ve lain in bed for a while.

Clarke freezes. It’s a fair question, honestly. They could go their separate ways, Bellamy back to D.C., her staying here, but she doesn’t really want that at all. She also doesn’t know if she could go back home; it’s something she hasn’t even considered until now.

“I don’t know,” She says truthfully.

“You could—,” Bellamy hesitates, seeming so unsure. It’s the same tone he used when he asked if she wanted him to spend the night with her after the funeral. “You could come home with me. Just for Christmas. See Octavia, and your mom, maybe.”

“Octavia,” Clarke swallows. “How is she?”

She looks at Bellamy when he speaks, his eyes already softer at the thought of his sister. “She’s good. Totally with it, remembers everything, not that I was surprised. The physical therapy is going well, for the most part. She gets frustrated a lot, with how slow it is, but Lincoln moved in with her, which has been surprisingly not a disaster. She’s been walking with the crutches, just around her apartment. And her grip strength has improved drastically.”

A smile creeps onto his face as he talks, and Clarke feels a warmth swell in her gut. It hits her like a truck, then, in that moment. The realization that he means everything to her, that she loves him, even.

“I’ll come home,” She blurts out, interrupting him. “For Christmas.”

His smile grows, his eyes bright with it, and she is impossibly in love with him. She kisses him then, and his lips are so gentle she almost can’t stand it. She makes a frustrated noise, and he must understand because he grabs her face with both his hands and works her mouth open with his tongue. It’s slow and warm and all kinds of fantastic, and they stay in bed the rest of the day.

-

She ends up not lasting the week in NYC and catches the first flight she can to D.C. She all but runs up the stairs to Bellamy’s apartment and bangs on the door.

He swings it open a minute later, bleary-eyed and bed-headed, and starts when he sees her.

“Hi,” She says.

“Hi,” He says, looking flabbergasted.

“Merry Christmas?” She says, suddenly overcome with nerves.

He doesn’t say anything, just blinks and rubs his eyes, as if he thinks she might not really be there. Whatever it is, his silence spurs her on.

“Look, I’m so sorry for leaving. For leaving you, I mean. I know we were in this dumb limbo up until the accident and I just… I love you, okay? And I couldn’t wait until Christmas. And I’m sorry.”

“You love me,” He says after a moment.

“Yes,” She replies shakily.

“Good,” He says and grabs her then, kissing her so firmly she drops her bags to the floor.

Later, Bellamy answers the door naked when his neighbor knocks to inquire about the suitcases blocking the hallway, and she laughs so hard her stomach hurts. “Merry Christmas,” He says as he sets her bags inside the apartment, and Clarke shrieks when he chases her back into his bedroom.

When he falls asleep that evening with his head on her chest, the thought washes over her, warm and steady, that maybe not today, or tomorrow, or the tomorrow after that, but eventually, they could be okay.


End file.
